


It’s not what you lost, It’s what you’ll gain

by rhyfel



Series: Julie and the Future [5]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Angst, Everybody Dies, Future Fic, Gen, Post-Canon, even the ghosts die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:02:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27053104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhyfel/pseuds/rhyfel
Summary: Julie quietly releases her last album on a Tuesday in July with a simple dedication:To Sunset Curve, the boys who helped me live again, even after they were gone.Everyone crosses over eventually.
Relationships: Alex/Willie (Julie and The Phantoms), Julie Molina/Luke Patterson
Series: Julie and the Future [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1990222
Comments: 73
Kudos: 558





	It’s not what you lost, It’s what you’ll gain

Reggie goes first.

There is no big moment. No playing the Orpheum or winning their first Grammy. Caleb has been gone for years and things have been as quiet as they can be for a multi-award winning band. They’re sitting on the couch together, rewatching an episode of a show they’d seen a thousand times before. Julie is curled up on one side of Reggie, her head resting on his shoulder. Luke is on the other side of her, his arm on the back of the couch, alternately playing with her hair or Reggie’s. Alex has his head in Reggie’s lap, lulled to an almost sleep by Reggie’s bassist fingers carding through his blond hair.

The actress on the screen talks about going to see Julie and the Phantoms and Reggie laughs, bright and happy and so _normal_.

But then it cuts off. Alex’s head hits the couch cushion with a thud. Julie elbows him in the throat as she falls sideways.

And Reggie is gone. At first Alex and Julie are annoyed, Luke amused, but they don’t think anything of it. Even now, Reggie collects lifers who he likes to check in on. Hang out with. It’s unusual for him to leave in the middle of band bonding, but it’s probably fine. Until it isn’t.

Alex, Luke, and Willie spend weeks searching. Julie tells Flynn, Carlos, and her dad to keep an eye out for anything strange. Tells them to leave notes out for Reggie that they’re looking for him. Willie eventually, hesitantly, says what everyone had been thinking but no one wanted to say. Reggie no longer had unfinished business. They can’t find him, because he’s on the other side. Wherever and whatever that means. They don’t tour anymore. Don’t put out albums. They can’t stop playing, but making more music without their thrumming heartbeat in the studio with them feels wrong.

They do stop going places alone, afraid something will happened and they won’t know. The uncertainty of Reggie’s disappearance haunting them more effectively than Reggie ever could. All dates are double dates. Shopping trips are excursions. Alex and Luke, whispering to each other in the dead of night while Julie sleeps, talk about what it will be like. Try to figure out their unfinished business. Neither of them say it, but they’re torn. Julie and Willie on one side. Reggie, all alone on the other. It’s an impossible choice. The guilt grows.

A few years later, Alex follows.

Alex and Willie had been trailing behind Luke and Julie as they slowly wandered down the beach. Dodging tourists and street performers, but enjoying the vibrancy, the life. When Julie is stopped by two men about the same age as Julie, it’s normal. Alex and Willie slowly catch up, content with each other’s company, when one of the men pulls out his wallet and shows Julie a picture of himself and an older couple. His parents. He thanks her, tells her to thank _Alex_ , for giving him the strength to come out to his parents. For showing his parents there was nothing wrong with being gay. For inadvertently introducing him to his husband through a Julie and the Phantoms fan page he’d followed. He says without them, without _Alex_ , he doesn’t know where he’d be. And Willie is holding Alex’s hand and looking at him so tenderly and Luke throws and arm around his shoulder and Alex is beaming and Julie can’t look directly at him, but she feels his joy and shares it and gives the couple the biggest grin she has, turning away, turning towards her remaining boys and Alex is _gone_.

Willie and Luke both break, Willie fleeing as soon as he realizes, sobbing. Luke dropping to the ground, silent tears streaming down his face. But they’re in public and Julie is visible and so Julie has to hold herself together long enough to get home. Get to Flynn’s house. Get to Carlos’s. Luke follows her, a weeping shadow. Unchanged from the first day he landed in her studio. And Julie has never felt older.

Life continues, as it always will. Willie comes around every week like clockwork, until he doesn’t, and they assume he crossed over too. Then Flynn. Then Carlos. Julie and the Phantoms is now so true it hurts. It’s just her and Luke and unlike decades ago when Reggie left, the fear is that Julie will leave Luke behind. That she will die and cross over with no in between step and he will be left. The same seventeen year old that died so long ago. Julie has never had regrets, not with their band, not choosing to be with Luke instead of someone she could build a life with, not a single second she spent with her boys. But if she did, she thinks it would be leaving him alone.

She tells him she wants to do one last album. A concept album that tells their story. Julie is old now, but her voice is still strong. And they have old unreleased tracks of Reggie and Alex. It’s almost the same.

The first song is sad. Julie singing plaintively in a way she never had before, a piano getting quieter and quieter. Then the boys join in, a discordant crash of drums, bass, and guitar arriving just as the piano is almost gone. They tease the piano back in, supporting it and ending the song on a hopeful note. The next four songs are joyous and vibrant and filled with _so much love_.

But then the bass disappears in the middle of the sixth song and Julie and Luke sing about a lost brother. A boy who only wanted a family and found it in the most unlikely of places. The dropped bass is subtle for those who are less musically inclined. The drums shuddering out two songs later is harder to miss.

Luke sings a song that is pure lament. Lost families, dreams almost achieved, the fracturing of a bond thought unbreakable.

The second to last song is learning to live again, the piano and guitar tentatively working together, getting stronger in turn until they are swirling around each other. The drums and bass still a void, but the song goes on.

The last song Julie performs by herself. The piano is alone again, but this time there is hope. Hope that those you lose are not gone forever.

Julie quietly releases it on a Tuesday in July with a simple dedication:

_To Sunset Curve, the boys who helped me live again, even after they were gone._

She dies three days later, Luke holding her hand, their first album playing softly in the background.

Luke thinks he’ll follow right after. But he ends up alone for years. He takes to haunting clubs and bars, coffee shops and street corners. It’s painful and raw and he doesn’t understand why he’s left. Bands rise and fall around him, but none interest him. None come close to the passion of Sunset Curve, the beauty and joy of Julie and the Phantoms. He’ll follow one for a time, hoping for something new, something familiar, just something. But he’s always disappointed.

At a certain point he gives up and just starts haunting the Orpheum. It’s so different, he almost doesn’t recognize it as the place he once died in front of. The place he’d placed all his dreams. But the energy of a young band trying to break into music never changes. He’s watching a band set up for their sound check, the drummer in a pale pink shirt and jeans, the bass player in a leather jacket, the lead guitar player in a sleeveless jacket, and the keyboard player with a butterfly patch on his jacket. It doesn’t register until they start playing. And it’s different, _of course_ it’s different. But they’re so happy and excited and it’s because of him. Luke Patterson. Because of _them_. Sunset Curve and Julie and the Phantoms. He closes his eyes, tears flowing in a way they haven’t in years and he knows this is it. Knows he’s finally ready to move on.

“Took you long enough.”

**Author's Note:**

> This show owns my entire heart.


End file.
